The next morning, Christmas
morning, I called at the picturesque roadside home of Mrs. Dinah Moore a Manxwoman
living near Glen Meay; and she contributed the best single collection of Manx
folk-legends I discovered on the island. The day was bright and frosty, and
much snow still remained in the shaded nooks and hollows, so that a seat before
the cheerful fire in Mrs. Moore's cottage was very comfortable; ;and with
most work suspended for the ancient day of festivities in honour of the Sun,
reborn after its death at the hands of the Powers of Darkness, all conditions
were favourable for hearing about fairies, and this may explain why such important
results were obtained......
A family at Dalby [Isle
of Man] had a poor idiot baby, and when it was twenty years old it still sat
by the fire just like a child. A tailor came to the house to work on a day
when all the folks were out cutting corn, and the idiot was left with him.
The tailor began to whistle as he sat on the table sewing, and the little
idiot sitting by the fire said to him: "If you'll not tell anybody when they
come in, I'll dance that tune for you." So the little fellow began to dance,
and he could step it out splendidly. Then he said to the tailor: "If you'll
not tell anybody when they come in, I'll play the fiddle for you." And the
tailor and the idiot spent a very enjoyable afternoon together. But before
the family came in from the fields, the poor idiot, as usual, was sitting
in a chair by the fire, a big baby who couldn't hardly talk. When the mother
came in she happened to say to the tailor, "You've a fine chap her," referring
to the idiot. "Yes, indeed," said the tailor, "we've had a very fine afternoon
together; but I think we had better make a good fire and put him on it." "Oh!"
cried the mother, "the poor child could never even walk."
"Ah, but he can dance
and play the fiddle, too," replied the tailor. And the fire was made; but
when the idiot saw that they were for putting him on it he pulled from his
pocket a ball, and this ball went rolling on ahead of him, and he, going after
it, was never seen again. After this strange story was finished I asked Mrs.
Moore where she had heard it, and she said: "I have heard this story ever
since I was a girl. I knew the house and family, and so did my mother. The
family's name was Cubbon."
Source: W. Y. Evans-Wentz,
The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries (1911), p. 128-129. The introduction to
this pieces comes from p. 127.